Phil Rader in the 1930 Aston Martin International he shares with his brother Rick. Photo by the author.

[Sometimes when trying to cram as much information as possible into an article for one of our magazines, we are forced to leave out some parts of the story that are worth being told. In the March 2014 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car, I wrote about a 1930 Aston Martin International owned by Phil Rader of Ossining, New York, and his brother, Rick, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, since 1974. The car has worn three bodies since new, including this boattailed Le Mans racer-style skin, fabricated in the 1950s and 1960s by a previous owner. The story just seemed incomplete without sharing more of the background with our readers.]

A total restoration of a car is a pretty hefty endeavor, something that many of us hope to do, but few actually carry through with their own hands. But what about building a car, or rebodying a prewar classic?

Jonathan Kirton at the wheel of the 1930 Aston Martin International 1.5-liter he spent the better part of a decade rebuilding. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Grenville Kirton.

But that owner was clever, though having removed most of the previous body of S.47 (this particular International’s serial number), arranged the grilled to be upright and facing whoever entered the garage. Like some before him and like the Rader brothers who would take custody a couple of decades later, Jonathan found himself immediately smitten. Here, before his eyes was a bona fide Aston Martin International. To make matters more enticing, the owner needed to sell it, his project long since stalled (stop me if you’ve never heard that one before). Jonathan got it for just $200. But he was presented with a rather significant problem: how to get it home.

Even without any significant bodywork beyond the front cowl, Jonathan Kirton drove the Aston Martin home with a seat mounted on a makeshift plywood platform. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Grenville Kirton.

The Aston was somewhat operational, but the previous owner had started the restoration project by removing the body with an axe. That’s right – he used an ordinary, everyday lumberjack’s tool to separate the closed-coupe body from the frame. Ouch! But before you get too unnerved at the idea of some heathen running ramshod over a veritable sports car classic, we should point out that the body on the car in 1955 was not original anyway.

One of the few pictures remaining of S.47 with its fixed-roof coupe body, first installed in about 1939 and then unceremoniously removed with an axe in the early 1950s. Photo courtesy of Geoff Holloway.

Jonathan shares the tale of the man he bought the car from: “He told me that the story he had been told was that the car had belonged to somebody up in Scotland, and they had developed tuberculosis in 1939, and the doctor had told the owner to sell the car because he shouldn’t drive an open car any more. And he said, ‘Sell my Aston? Never!’ And he went and had this coachbuilt body built on the chassis. By the time I came along, the next owner had set the radiator up on the chassis, taken the old body off, literally with an axe, because he couldn’t get it off any other way. The bottom of the body was all rotten. It was parked over on one side of the garage.”

Even before he built the LM4 Le Mans-style replica body, Jonathan Kirton entered the bare chassis in the Montreal International Auto Show, where the car received an award. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Grenville Kirton.

Still, Jonathan had to get it home. Not having a trailer, but with the Aston chassis and driveline somewhat operational, Jonathan jury-rigged a seat on top of a platform of plywood and hustled the car home. He had so much fun, he spent the entire summer driving it that way – just a seat on a plywood base. Of course, driving an old, open car – a very open car – on the roads of Quebec attracted plenty of attention from the police. Jonathan, himself an immigrant from England like the car, would explain that the Aston had a British license, and the cops accepted that. Surely, his accent must have helped get him out of a few jams. But every summer ends, and in Quebec they end hard, so Jonathan set about restoring the car.

Jonathan Kirton used traditional coachbuilding techniques to create the wood frame for this Aston Martin International some 50 years ago. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Grenville Kirton

Although the original body had been a 2/4 seater, Jonathan had other plans. Of course, he had to get to the bottom of things first before building it back up. “Eventually, I started rebuilding it,” he says. “And it was in shocking condition! The chassis had 32 bronze bushings. The rear suspension had cot springs, and each cot spring had a standing link, and all of those links had bronze bushings in them. Each spring at each corner of the car had five bronze bushings. After they put the saloon body on, all of the old lubricating points were covered up. The net result was that the car hadn’t been lubricated at least for several years. All of the bronze had worn right through. The steel links were riding into the steel shafts which held all of the suspension. So, all of those had to be welded up with stellite and then ground and then new bronze bushings had to be made and pressed into the links. I did all of that myself on the lathe. I tried to do an absolutely crack up job and I guess I didn’t do a bad job because it’s still in the state when it was when I rebuilt it.” Even before installing a new body, Jonathan entered the car in the Montreal International Auto Show, where the bare chassis was awarded a prize.

More detail of the wooden frame Jonathan Kirton built by hand to rebody this 1930 Aston Martin International 1.5-liter. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Grenville Kirton.

As for the body, Jonathan found himself inspired by the LM series of cars, based on the International, that Aston Martin ran at Le Mans, particularly LM3 and LM4, the two factory team cars in 1930. Via the Aston Martin Owners Club, Jonathan was able to contact the owner of LM4, who provided him with the appropriate dimensions. As an aviation interior fabricator, Jonathan had the skills to create a proper set of drawings for his planned Le Mans recreation. But he needed a bit of help to actually build the body. “I was lucky to find a former De Havilland aircraft sheetmetal engineering apprentice,” Jonathan recalls. “He knew how to use an English wheel and weld aluminum. So, I built the wooden frame for the body and then he did the aluminum for me. It took him about two-and-a-half years to get around to it. So, in the end, when I finally picked it up from his house, he said, ‘I’ve taken so long, I am not going to charge you for putting the aluminum on.’” That’s quite the honest man—and quite the deal.

Though the overall effect is very close to that of LM4, Jonathan had to make a couple of compromises for the road-going car. “It was as close as I could get, but I am a pretty big guy. It was a tight fit in the original body, so I widened the cockpit fore and aft, and I got an additional eight inches so that I could get in and even then, it was a tight fit.”

S.47 today, little changed from 1967, when Jonathan Kirton completed the restoration and rebody. Photo by the author.

The body remains in remarkable shape today, despite being well used in the ensuing 47 years. It ultimately took Jonathan 12 years to complete the project. By 1967, with a family of his own and the shifting priorities that entails, Jonathan put an ad in Hemmings Motor News. He got a variety of responses, including some “ridiculous” ones, but eventually sold the car to a local Montreal collector. Despite the very high quality of Jonathan’s work, S.47 mostly sat, first for three years at a post-Expo ’67 exhibition tied to the World’s Fair held in Montreal that year.

Phil Rader at the wheel of the 1930 Aston Martin International 1.5-liter he co-owns with his brother Rick. Photo by the author.

The car found its way to a stall at Hershey in 1974, where the Rader brothers picked it up, falling in love with it themselves. But Jonathan never forgot the International, S.47 never far from his mind. Over the years, he found himself googling the car, and eventually some photos from the Greenwich Concours, where Phil Rader had shown the car, popped up. Jonathan tracked down the brothers and shared his part of the story, and he couldn’t be happier for it.

Jonathan Kirton at the wheel of the 1930 Aston Martin International 1.5-liter, beaming with pride at the results of his extraordinary effort to rebody the car. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Grenville Kirton.

“I am sitting in my study and have practically a whole wall devoted to that car. I put a lot of my life into that car. I’ve loved it from that day I first saw it, and I was really tickled to rediscover it, particularly to find out that it still has the original paint job that I put on it in 1967. It was just amazing to rediscover it. I dearly loved that car, but I couldn’t keep it. I don’t really have any regrets. At least it’s gone to a good home, and that’s very important. I had an awful lot of pleasure out if it while I had it.”

Jonathan Kirton at the wheel of the 1930 Aston Martin International 1.5-liter he rebodied with this sleek, Le Mans-inspired boattail coachwork. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Grenville Kirton.

The March 2014 issue of Hemmings Sports and Exotic Car is on sale now. For more information, or to purchase a copy, visit Hemmings.com.

I can’t speak to the money this car might bring to the right buyer and as to whether it is somehow deemed less worthy of top dollar due to its multiple rebodies. However, this story is not about the money.

First, when Jonathan owned the car and now with the Rader brothers, this story has been about how much all three of these gentlemen love this car and are devoted to it. It is a reminder that this hobby can be very rewarding and fulfilling in a way that has nothing to do with money.

Save for an unexpected family emergency, the brothers are genuinely committed to keeping the car for the long haul. They honestly care not a whit about its value. To me, their story is almost the antidote to a week at the Arizona auctions because, in this case, it’s truly not about the money.

I know that’s not the answer you’re looking for, but I urge you to seek out a copy of the March 2014 Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car to read the rest of the story, though it will show up here online in a few months.

It always thrills a prole like me to see one of these cars out and about, whether at a show, or a road event. I always wince at stratospheric auction prices and the crowd that drives them up, but beam when seeing a deserving old car having sweat, as well as money, lavished on it – what a labour of love!

As for the “provenance”? Is the body to be considered “authentic”? ABSOLUTELY! We forget that, in the Era in which it was built, a car of this nature was hand-built, and frequently modified to the tastes and needs of the owner the only difference being that the original body was built by professionals, for hire, whilst the re-body was done by an “amateur” – defined in this case as a non-professional who does it for the love of it rather than money. The results seem indistinguishable from a professional restorer’s efforts, so kudos to him!

I’m an admirer of Geoffrey De Havilland, and having a “De Havilland man” involved makes this story especially thrilling.

Hope to encounter it out on the road, someday, Phil and Rick!

[BTW does your stewardship of this fine car make you "Raders of the Lost Ark?"]

Regarding provenance and worth, many classic-era cars were rebodied, some from accidents, others to answer a different need. It seems that if the original engine-chassis remains intact, there is little damage to its inherent worth, and sometimes the value even seems to rise, like when one mounts a speedster body as in this example.

And, in the case of Duesenbergs, even changing the engine doesn’t hurt their value. Their marque has that je ne sais quoi which guarantees continued appreciation.

Some cars just seem to “have it.” Aston is certainly one of them. Beautiful car, and a great story!